A New Principal Pushes for Change. Then the Investigations Start.

Between 2007 and 2017 the variety of complaints made yearly towards principals and assistant principals to the Special Commissioner of Investigation, one among the two most important entities that perform investigations in the colleges, greater than doubled, to 1,671 from 740. The largest will increase occurred between 2009 and 2014.

The Special Commissioner’s workplace usually investigated just one to 2 hundred of these complaints a 12 months, whereas referring many extra to the schooling division’s Office of Special Investigations, which typically handles extra minor complaints. In 2017, for instance, the Special Commissioner’s workplace referred 1,184 complaints to the Office of Special Investigations. The schooling division stated it couldn’t say what number of of these complaints had been investigated.

But the metropolis’s investigative course of itself may be Kafkaesque: Investigations may be triggered by nameless complaints. Principals say that in some instances they don’t seem to be informed clearly what the fees are, making it arduous to mount a protection. In December, Mr. Zeimer obtained discover from the Office of Special Investigations case towards him had been closed. When he requested the nature of the allegations, he was informed that the workplace couldn’t say.

Many principals chafed below the administration of former colleges chancellor Carmen Fariña, whom they noticed as watering down their authority. Ernest Logan, the former head of the principals union, stated that below the Bloomberg administration officers at the schooling division generally gave principals who confronted complaints the good thing about the doubt as a result of they understood “the need to make some noise, to shake up people.” Under Mr. de Blasio, who has a a lot nearer relationship with the academics union, he stated, the schooling division simply “wanted the noise to go away.” Whether that can change below the new chancellor, Richard A. Carranza, who changed Ms. Fariña in April, is an open query.

The present senior supervising superintendent at the schooling division, Laura Feijoo, stated that there have been “countless examples” of the division supporting principals in troublesome conditions, and that Mr. Zeimer, Ms. Elvin, and Mr. Taveras had been eliminated due to severe misconduct.

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the academics union, stated that these three principals “were the agents of their own demise,” citing “their lack of ability to work with other adults” and to “realize that, as a leader, your job is to lead, not to dictate and punish.”